An Independent Bookstore Rises on the Upper West Side

Chris Doeblin in is soon-to-be bookstore, Book Culture, on the Upper West Side.

Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

Chris Doeblin is helping to write a new chapter in the saga of independent bookstores on the Upper West Side.

Competition from Barnes & Noble killed off almost all of the neighborhood’s independent bookstores years ago. Eeyore’s, which sold children’s books, closed on Broadway at West 79th Street in 1993. Endicott Booksellers on Columbus Avenue closed in 1995, and Shakespeare & Co. on Broadway at West 81st Street closed in 1996. Murder Ink on Broadway near West 92nd Street, which specialized in mysteries, closed in 2006.

Now Mr. Doeblin and business partner Annie Hedrick, who own the two Book Culture bookstores in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, plan a third store on Columbus Avenue near West 82nd Street in the same space once held by Endicott Booksellers. They hope to open the 4,000-square foot store in November, in time for the holiday shopping season.

Children’s books will be downstairs, adult books will be upstairs. Book Culture will also sell other merchandise, such as toys with the children’s’ books, and kitchen items with the cookbooks.

The space has red-brick walls and nooks that will make quiet browsing spots. “This is a great old building,” Mr. Doeblin said.

Big blue window posters announce the new venture. Mr. Doeblin leaves the front door open when he visits, and people stop by to tell him how excited they are to see a new bookstore in the neighborhood.

Encarnita Quinlan, who owned Endicott Booksellers, said the arrival of the Barnes & Noble on Broadway at 82nd Street was fatal to her business. “Every year, I made a little bit more money,” she said. “The moment they opened, my sales went down 30%.”

Ms. Quinlan’s husband Robert, a developer, still owns the Columbus Avenue space. Ms. Quinlan is excited about the new store. She called Book Culture’s plans “a little sprig of green in a totally scorched landscape.”

Mr. Quinlan also owns Walker, Malloy and Company, the real estate firm that handled the Book Culture lease. “We really jumped on it, despite the fact we had other options,” said Rafe Evans, a Walker, Malloy agent. “It’s just so good for the neighborhood. It’s balm for the soul to know you are within walking distance of a nice bookstore.”

The exterior of the new Book Culture on the Upper West Side.

Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

The independent bookstore business got tough with the expansions of Barnes & Noble in the 1980s and the now-defunct Borders chain in the 1990s. It got even tougher with the arrival of the Internet and book-selling behemoth Amazon.com.

Sales at brick-and-mortar bookstores nationwide declined at a 3.8% annual rate from 2008 to 2013, according to the IBISWorld research firm. It expects the decline to slow in the following five years to 1.7% annually. IBISWorld also said that by 2018, from 2013, the total number of bookstores of all types – from small independents to chain stores – will decline by 11.6%, to about 24,210.

Mr. Doeblin believes he can beat the trend by catering to neighborhood readers’ interests, offering authors’ events, providing a fun place for the neighborhood’s children.

He expects the Columbus Avenue store will be a larger version of Book Culture’s store on Broadway at West 114th Street, which also sells such items as children’s scooters, plush toys, coffee mugs, teapots, and stationery. “I wouldn’t be able to imagine a bookstore running solely on books,” he said.

The store will need around $3 million in yearly sales to break even, Mr. Doeblin said. “That’s not a huge amount of books.”

Besides, he said, the Upper West side “is a great demographic for any retailer. It’s a wealthy group of people with all kinds of jobs in the culture industry … What’s not to like? It’s one of the greatest neighborhoods to sell stuff in the world.”

Independent booksellers are eager to turn the page on stories of their industry’s demise. The American Booksellers Association, a trade group, said the number of stores operated by its members topped the 2,000 mark this year for the first time since 2005.

In recent years new independent stores have opened in Queens, Brooklyn and Jersey City, said Oren Teicher, the association’s CEO. “We have new stores opening, and we have existing stores selling to new owners,” Mr. Teicher said. “We have got a whole new generation of younger booksellers who have come into the business who have helped energize everybody else. We are fighting back.”